But ... was I ever any good at football myself ?

As this blog has developed I have had feedback from a number of people who I have not yet met who are reading the blog and also feedback from people who I have known for a long time but who were not totally aware of my obsession with football and in particular the FA Cup. One or two have asked: ‘were you ever any good at football yourself Chris?’. The answer is no, I was shite but I enjoyed every minute of my long and less than illustrious playing career.

Like most other boys growing up in the north east of England I was kicking a ball around from as soon as I could walk. I played football in the back garden, the driveway, the street, the local park - anywhere. I played football with my younger brother Martin, the local kids, kids from school – anyone that would play. Below is a pic showing me ready for action in the back garden aged about 8.

 

At this stage in my life hoping to play for Boro at Wembley

My first recollection of playing for a team was when I was picked to play for the 2^nd and 3^rd years for my junior school team in a league competition in Redcar. I played on the right wing and I was a 9 year old in a team of 9 and 10 year olds. So, at this stage, I was doing ok. Little did I realise then that this was to be the highlight. My fledgling career was stopped in its tracks when I went in to third year (i.e. I was now one of the ten year olds) and was not picked despite being a year older. When I got into the fourth and final year I did not get picked for the school team.

Going in to secondary school my enthusiasm never waned but I was not picked for the U-13s at Sacred Heart secondary school Redcar. When the family moved to Midlothian I played in the trial matches for the St Davids Dalkeith school teams at U-14, U-15 and U-16 but never made the team. I continued to play with pals in the fields and occasionally in The Meadows in Edinburgh. Despite having to come to terms with the fact that I was never going to run out to play in an FA Cup final for Middlesbrough my love of the beautiful game actually flourished.

When I got in to 5^th year I suddenly found that all the good footballers had left school. My classmates were all staying on at school to try to get in to University and typically they were not very good at football. Early in my Highers year I went to play in the trial match for the U-18s and to my surprise found that I was not just in the squad, I was in the team. For two years on Saturday mornings I patrolled the right midfield berth in a 4 4 2 set up for St Davids. Opposition U-18 teams were also made up of academic 16 and 17 year olds and they were not very good either. So the matches were usually close and very enjoyable.

Rocking up at Stirling University as a 17 year old I was more into the music than the fitba and had no ambitions to get involved with 11 a side football. However, me and my new pals entered a team called ‘The Terrible Men’ into the 1979-80 six a side intra mural football league playing our games on Wednesday afternoons. We also played in the two seasons that followed as ‘The Last of the Terrible Man’ and ‘The Return of the Terrible Men.’ Flatmates and lifelong pals Alan McCusker Thomson and Jim Mullin played in all manifestations of the Terrible Men. We were pretty average but we did take it all very seriously and got fairly hyped for matches. On one Wed afternoon we were playing against a group of lads who were much better than us but we were holding out. One of the opposition players was flying past me when I stuck out a leg and tripped him and he went flying. A cry of “referee for fucks sake” emanated from the prostrate player. I leaned over him and said “get up – for fucks sake it’s a mans game”. The game raged on. Ten minutes after the final whistle in the communal shower I heard a polite enquiry ‘who was the guy who said it is a mans game?’ – ‘that was me’ I replied. Next I felt a thud on the side of my face as I was felled with one punch. There then followed a group of naked young men fighting in a shower in a scene that could have been lifted from a popular DH Lawrence novel. Most of the games were concluded in a much more amicable fashion. 

After University, apart from one year working in the motor trade as a garage equipment salesman, I forged a career as a secondary school teacher. During the summer terms the school teachers would play each other in a series of friendly staff matches on Thursday evenings. Hence I was able to reacquaint myself with the world of 11 a side football again. The 5 years playing for the combined Firrhill / Balerno staff team provided some great times and some fun matches. 

The Firrhill / Balerno staff team in typically sedentary action - 'Duffer' Donkin on left of the shot

Most of these games were very convivial but occasionally a match would flare up and bit of feistiness would be in evidence. Most of the time I played up front but occasionally I was detailed by our team captain to man mark their best player. Basically the advice was just to run around close to him to put him off his game. One such game was against Musselburgh Grammar staff where their playmaker was also the Headmaster and the part-time manager of Meadowbank Thistle Terry Christie. I followed him all over the pitch and he did not like it. Towards the end of the first half he decided to work a wee trick on me and go past me. He did get past me but I managed to trip him from behind as he went past and just like the Stirling University 6 a side player years earlier he went flying. I recall being very surprised how high he went after I tripped him and being quite pleased that I had managed to kick him up in the air. He was infuriated. He ran after the ball and collected it, brought it back and held it in front of my face: “look son – this is what you are supposed to fucking kick”. Two weeks later I was interviewed for a job at Musselburgh Grammar. As we sat opposite each other at the interview table he asked: “do I not know you from somewhere?”. “I think we played in the same football match recently” I said. I did not get the job.

In 1991 I moved to Boston Lincolnshire to work at Boston College and still being only 33 years old I thought this would be a good time to start playing competitive 11 a side football again - possibly in the Boston and District Sunday League. I had studied the league tables in the local rag and I did the arithmetic and worked out that if I could find the right team then I may be able to give a Sunday outfit the benefit of my years of experience and my silky right foot. The arithmetic went as follows: 30000 people in Boston in 1991. Hence 15000 of these were male. Of these only (say) 4000 would be in the age range 18 to 40. Probably only ¼ of these would be interested in playing. So, no more than 1000 fish in the talent pool. At that time there were about 50 teams in the Boston Sunday League and each team had a squad of about 20 players. With 50x20 equalling 1000 I reckoned that everybody would get a game – even me. I was right. And the right team was Cavaliers! Pic shown below of Cavaliers at the end of season 1995 when I was completing 4 glorious seasons on the right of midfield in their famous blue colours.

The caption underneath this picture from the Boston Standard  from May 1995 reads: “They say it’s the taking part that counts, and Boston Sunday League Division Two side Cavaliers would no doubt echo that sentiment. Poor Cavaliers finished their season with a 1-0 defeat, their best result of the season having played 18 lost 18 scoring 25 goals and conceding 121. However the Cavaliers deserve some credit – they managed to field a full team every week”. I am pictured standing 4^th from the left. The caption is proof positive that not only was I never any good as a player but I played for some ropey teams. After four eventful seasons with the Cavliers as a player there was only one way to go – in to management.

In 1995 Sports Science was starting at Boston College and the new Head of Sports Science, Mark Locking, and I thought it would be good to put a College team in to the Sunday League. Hence I left Cavaliers to co-manage the College team with Barry Peck. In the photo below from the Boston Standard Barry and I are at the outside of each side of the back row.

Boston College Sunday League team 1995-96: Managed by Donkin and Peck

Mark Locking was registered as a player and can be seen on the right hand side of the goal-keeper. My son Brian was 10 years old at the time and is the mascot in the front row. Some of the Sports Science lads from that era have remained in touch and have become good pals of mine - notably Koran Darrigan, Tony Tiffen and Simon Moses. Tony and Simon are also in the photo above. The team were relatively successful although I can’t claim my extensive knowledge of the game positively influenced their results. After one baffling and unstructured half time team talk that had been received in amazed confusion Koran said to me “you know gaffer I am sure that you think tactics are those small mints you get in a rectangular box”. Having helped to establish the College team in the league I then helped launch the College Reserve team and agreed to coach (I use the word in the loosest of terms) them. In the photo below I am top row third from the right.

 

Boston College Reserves - Boston Sunday League circa 1998

My good friends Koran and Martin Jolly are also in this pic. If we had less than 14 players turning up, or if the first team had to nick a couple of players, then I regularly got stripped and named myself on the team listings. Indeed I played in the Boston Sunday League as a not-so ‘super sub’ well beyond my 40^th birthday.

While all this Sunday League activity was going on, in parallel there was also staff football on a Friday night. This continued from 1993 right through to 2003. Like the staff football involving secondary schools in Edinburgh this was very light hearted and the drinking sessions that followed the matches were the main draw for many of the staff. The team photo below is a fairly typical line up and if you are counting we did regularly turn up with 9 or 10 players.

 

Boston College staff team circa 1997

My son Brian, who is seen in the middle of the front row, and was about 11 at the time and he ended up playing for the staff team on many occasions to make up the numbers. Over the decade we played well over 200 matches and the Fire Brigade, The Cauli Cutters, The Boston Borough Council, The Overseas Students and the Sports Science Students often provided the opposition. The standard was variable but the matches were always hugely enjoyable. As the years rolled by I gave up the midfield role and I moved into the forward line where one of the late Johhnny Hale’s match reports noted that ‘Donkin slumbered peacefully while the battled raged around him’. I did however score a few goals many of which were penalties. Throughout my lengthy career in the lowest echelons of soccer I must have taken about 20 penalties and I converted all but one. I had a technique that invariably worked. I would place the ball on the spot and step backwards away from the ball staring into the left hand side of the goal. I would then run up, head-down and kick the ball to my right. When I looked up the keeper would in most cases have dived to the left and the ball would be nestling in the right hand side of the netting. I believe that these days this is fashionably called ‘giving the keeper the eyes’. The problem was that I did not have the technique or ability to wrap my foot around the ball and send it left with any force. In one staff match the Fire Brigade turned up with 10 men and we had 12. So I offered to play for the Firemen. Towards the end of the game the Fire Brigade won a penalty. I grabbed the ball and placed it on the spot amidst cries of ‘why is the guest player taking the pen?’. As I walked backwards from the spot I saw the Staff team goalkeeper Viv Rynne laughing. He knew what was coming. I called to him – “it’s the double bluff tonight Viv this penalty is going to my left”. I put my head down hit the ball with some force to my right, as always. As I raised my head I saw that Viv had positioned himself three feet inside the right hand post and had caught the ball in his midriff without moving. The left hand side of goal gaped like a chasm. The end of my 100% record from the spot. The staff team also played an annual away match and the ‘boys night outs’ included playing teams from Peterborough, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Sheffield and one year on a very muddy pitch in Ripon a game organised for us by Andy Sandall. Pics from this match are shown below and yes one of our players was female.

Andy Sandall and a mud splattered blogger

 

Boston College Staff FC - on the road and in the mud

 

Silky skills or a total lack of balance ?

My last ever game of football gave me final notification that it was time to call it a day. By the time I was leaving Boston in 2008 to move back to Midlothian I was self employed. We organised a meal for people who I had worked with. These included a former student Phil Callow now running an IT business and the aforementioned Koran Darrigan who worked for me for a while. Phil was telling Koran that every Monday night he organised a short sided football match for his staff and invited Koran (now about 30 year old) to join them. “Hey – what about the invite for me” I protested. They both laughed and although now in my 50s the laughter made me more determined to get my boots on once again. I went to Spalding that next Monday. Kicked the ball once in the warm up and something went twang in my right leg and I have not played since. A great loss to the beautiful game.

I have always watched a lot of football but since hanging up my boots I have enjoyed the spectator experience more than ever. I look forward to all the games I attend with some relish but I am literally agog with anticipation at the prospect of watching Penrith play Sunderland RCA next Saturday in the Extra Preliminary Round of the FA Cup. The Road to Wembley from Scotland is about to start and I am ready for it!